U.S. Approves Major AIM-120C-8 Missile Sale as Denmark Expands F-35 Role in Northern Europe.

The U.S. State Department has approved a $730 million Foreign Military Sale to Denmark that includes 200 AIM-120C-8 missiles and associated support. The deal reinforces Denmark’s F-35 modernization effort and strengthens NATO’s northern air defense posture.

The United States has signed off on a major missile package for Denmark, according to the Defense Security Cooperation Agency on 5 December 2025, which confirmed Washington’s approval of a proposed sale covering 200 AIM-120C-8 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles and related equipment. RTX Corporation is listed as the prime contractor, and U.S. officials described the transaction as a routine reinforcement of a close NATO ally that does not alter the regional balance but does expand Denmark’s capacity to operate its growing F-35A fleet in northern Europe’s increasingly contested airspace.
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Denmark's new AIM-120C-8 AMRAAM delivers extended range, improved electronic protection, and faster onboard processing, giving F-35A pilots a stealth-compatible, fire-and-forget weapon able to engage multiple airborne threats beyond visual range with high precision (Picture source: U.S. DoW).

Denmark is conducting a once-in-a-generation recapitalisation of its air force around the F-35A. Copenhagen plans to grow the fleet from 27 to 43 aircraft under a 27.4 billion crown package focused on Arctic and North Atlantic security, with full operational capability projected in 2027. Danish F-35S are already on quick reaction alert, having intercepted Russian Il-20 surveillance aircraft over the Baltic in early 2025, while F-16S continue to cover missions until their planned retirement later this decade.

At the technical level, Denmark is buying the latest evolution of a missile it already knows well. AMRAAM is the backbone Western beyond visual range air-to-air weapon, a 160-kilogram-class missile with a 20-kilogram high-explosive blast fragmentation warhead and a quoted C-series range of roughly 90 kilometres, guided by inertial navigation, a mid-course data link, and an active radar seeker in the endgame. The AIM-120C-8 variant being offered to Denmark incorporates the Form, Fit, Function Refresh package, which replaces 15 guidance circuit cards and moves legacy code onto a new digital architecture shared with the AIM-120D-3, giving more processing power for improved electronic protection and software-based upgrades through the 2030s.

On the cockpit side, the C-8 gives Danish pilots a beyond visual range magazine optimised for F-35 tactics. F-35S can carry AIM-120C-8 internally, keeping a clean low observable profile while the aircraft’s AESA radar, electro-optical sensors, and fused data from Link 16 and NATO networks quietly build the firing solution. Once launched, AMRAAM’s fire-and-forget guidance lets a single patrol prosecute several tracks with limited cockpit workload, a crucial attribute during incursions by Russian aircraft or drones. Layered on top of Denmark’s existing AMRAAM experience on F-16 MLU jets, the new rounds arrive just weeks after U.S. approval of 340 AIM-9X Block II missiles, completing a short and medium-range refresh for Danish air-to-air combat.

For Copenhagen, the missiles are procured with very concrete missions in mind. Denmark sits on the seam between the Baltic and the North Atlantic, responsible for the defence of Greenland and the Faroe Islands while contributing fighters to NATO air policing and, increasingly, the Eastern Sentry posture that reinforces the Alliance’s eastern flank after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. NATO is simultaneously restructuring its command arrangements so that Denmark and the wider Nordic region fall under U.S.-based Joint Force Command Norfolk, the headquarters charged with securing the North Atlantic and the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap. In that geometry, a magazine of modern AMRAAMs on Danish F-35S is not a boutique capability but a daily contribution to keeping northern and Baltic airspace credible and predictable.

The C-8 stockpile dovetails with Denmark’s new NASAMS ground-based air defence, another recent purchase built around AMRAAM family missiles, at a time when allied demand is driving record AMRAAM production contracts for RTX. For the Royal Danish Air Force, this Foreign Military Sale is therefore not an isolated missile buy but a key enabler of a layered, networked air combat architecture stretching from the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap to the Baltic Sea.